Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

The Will to Battle--the third book of 2017 John W. Campbell Award winner Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series--a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity

"A cornucopia of dazzling, sharp ideas set in rich, wry prose that rewards rumination with layers of delight. Provocative, erudite, inventive, resplendent." --Ken Liu, author of The Grace of KingsThe long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.

Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency humwithin the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.

The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hivesbought the world's stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. Sothat no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.

The Hives' facade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance oforder, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of warspast. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that facade isslipping away.

Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone--Hivesand hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors andsaints--scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.

"Seven Surrenders veers expertly between love, murder, mayhem, parenthood, theology, and high politics. I haven't had this much fun with a book in a long time." --Max Gladstone, author of Three Parts DeadTerra Ignota Series1. Too Like the Lightning2. Seven Surrenders3. The Will to Battle